Report 71

Last week we discussed the Ox Herding pictures. Calvino gave a rather eloquent summation of that story which was the opposite of a fearful kind of hoarding, and I remembered Pema sharing at Windhorse, a similar image and the Dogen story of "One Bright Pearl" which reminded me that Jesus talked about a 'pearl of great price' as well... how the man who found it was emboldened to shed everything seemingly 'in the way' of its expression in his life... as his life. I had this image of a man rushing into the marketplace without fear.

So I have two examples from my own life, one general and one more specific:

The general example I have shared here before, of contemplation causing a kind of flip in my personality toward connection and engagement with others, whereas before I had been protective/shy to an extreme. I was just terrified of people, terrified of being humiliated in one form or another, and a great many things felt like humiliation. Though I'm still well capable of feeling embarrassed or even somewhat mortified by this or that, it doesn't stick, and that feeling of things being personal is dwarfed in comparison with the dominant openness.

Often a fearless sort of body steps forward first from a different sort of context, and practice seems to be allowing less and less in the way of its doing so. :)

The specific example

Song of Enlightenment:

http://members.optushome.com.au/davidquinn000/Buddhist%20Writings/Song.htm